Rancher Daddy

by Lexi Whitlow

“I want to know,” he says.

  “I was going to run. Just get out of the country. Flee from her and all her demands and criminal ambitions. That’s looking like a pretty good plan right about now.”

  Maddox grips the steering wheel and looks dead ahead.

  “You can’t do that,” he says to me, his jaw clenched, his voice tight with angst. “I can’t let you do that.”

  “You can’t stop me,” I say.

  He looks straight at me. “I can. And I have to. Part of the terms of my employment contract, I can’t let you leave the country – not even the state. I have to keep you safe – and local.”

  What the ever-loving-fuck? That’s even crazier than the morality clause in the contract they made me sign last time Mother was running.

  “Maddox. I’m twenty-five years old. When it comes right down to it, I can do what I want.”

  “Can you live without her money?” He asks me. It’s a fair question. And because I can’t think about what it would actually mean to have to live without her money, I turn the question around on him.

  “Can you?” I ask.

  “No,” he says without hesitating. “No. I’m pretty much fucked without this job.”

  And there you have it. Everyone has their priorities.

  “Great,” I say. “Well, at least I know where I stand. You’re my body guard, and apparently a dedicated fuck buddy. But probably – when push comes to shove, not much more than that.”

  “Avery—”

  “No. It’s all cool. Better than I expected. It’s good to know where we are. It’s fantastic, in fact. Because I was worried you were taking this little thing we have way too seriously. Now, I don’t need to worry. I know you have a job to do and I have a job to do, and we’ll figure it all out. At least I don’t need to fret myself with thinking there’s anything complicated going on.”

  I stare out the window. I don’t know why, but tears try to form up behind my eyes. Fuck that. I don’t cry. Not over a guy. Not ever.

  This guy has muddled my head for weeks, but no more. Now I know.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Maddox

  I understand why Avery is pissed. I really do. But the girl doesn’t get the fact that the world does not entirely revolve around her.

  Yesterday I went with her to the registrar’s office at Berkeley and watched her fill out all the paperwork necessary to withdraw from her classes. She was methodical about it. Calculating. Resigned. She never let one bit of emotion slip into the whole undertaking. The Dean made her go meet with her Faculty Adviser. Her adviser was emotional. He couldn’t believe it.

  “I don’t understand.” He said. “You’re on track to win a Graduate Fellowship next term. Your paper on the synthesis between the Military Industrial Complex’s new developments in domestic propaganda dissemination and the Pentagon’s focus on internal enemies lists is going to be published in the next Berkeley Partisan Review. Why would you…?”

  Avery shut him down. “My personal politics take a back seat to my mother’s political ambition. Let’s face it. I’m a Thomas. I’m a brand name. She gets to call the shots. I do as I’m told.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way.” He said. “Look at Christopher Buckley. He strayed from the fold.”

  “Yeah. Chris Buckley had his own trust fund and a minority share position in the National Review. And his father is dead. No matter what shit they publish, he gets paid. I only get rent made if I tow the company line. My mother is very much alive and kicking.”

  Listening to her talk, I start to get a better picture of what she’s going through.

  I can live under a bridge if I have to. I lived in a storage container in Afghanistan. A storage container with three other guys and a bucket all three of us shit in. It was nasty. A bridge by myself would be an upgrade by comparison.

  Iraq was a lot better. We lived in a house that had a kitchen and a functioning latrine. The courtyard had citrus trees growing in it, at least until we bombed it and scorched the living shit out of everything in that neighborhood.

  But my mother – she can’t live under a bridge.

  She always fought like she was going to live forever. She still is. When we first saw the brain tumor on the scan, everything we’d been through flashed in my mind. My father, her near-brush with death, the time she spent working for the Thomas family. The worry and pain and fear, my tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. The injury that sent me home and all the time in the hospital after that.

  And after everything, Richard Thomas appeared on our doorstep. All in repayment for something my mother did years ago.

  We couldn’t refuse. And I couldn’t refuse the job.

  In my head, I’m trying to work out what happens next.

  If I lose my job, my mother loses her place in independent living. The trial should be over next week — but she may need chemo. Radiation. More treatments.

  Avery has no clue about problems like this. It’s all theoretical to her. Her heart is in the right place, but her head is up in the clouds.

  As much as I want to believe we might, on some slim chance, have a future together, I have to keep in mind that Avery and I come from very different places. At best I am diversion to her. A fucking good roll in the sack. In reality I am not much more than that. She’s out of my league in so many ways, starting with the money and ending with the IQ — I can’t hold a candle to her.

  When she was in high school, I admired her. She was so smart – without even trying. But after I graduated I realized that kids like her had so many advantages the rest of us never got. Girls like Avery were never meant to mix with guys like me. There was that kiss we shared, and the friendship from our childhood, but none of that was real. That was fantasy.

  This shit – this is real.

  I need to keep her safe, and local, so I can continue to get paid. The obligations I have are bigger than Avery’s entitled sense of personal space and free will.

  I wish I had a solution.

  “Are you staying?” she asks.

  She’s been distant, reticent, all day long. I made us dinner and she ate without much to say.

  “I have to.” I tell her. “Or across the street. Which just seems weird now.”

  The terms of the contract I signed are clear. She’s got to be under 24x7 observation. I need to have my eyes on her constantly.

  “Yeah,” she says. She’s not giving up much.

  “Let’s just go to bed.” I suggest. “I know you’re pissed at me, but we can sleep… together… I won’t do a thing. I promise.”

  Avery meets my gaze, locking her blue eyes on mine. “Are you capable of that?” She asks.

  Like I’m some kind of Neanderthal, incapable of controlling my impulses. I glance down to her breasts, the sweet, soft curve of her waist. Fuck. I just might be a neanderthal.

  “I’m capable of a lot more than you give me credit for,” I say, shifting uncomfortably. “Way more practice at that than you’ve had.”

  We slip in to bed together and turn the lights off. I’m fine feeling her against my skin without needing to do anything to close the gap. If I get hard during the night, I’ll think about baseball. Then she rolls over, her back to me, not speaking, but rocking her ass into me.

  “You sure you don’t want to?” I ask, hopefully.

  “I’m sore,” she says. “And I’m pissed. And I just want to sleep. I’m exhausted.”

  It’s going to be a long night.

  I wake up with a hard-on rocking against Avery’s backside. She’s already grasping at my hips, pulling me into her, despite the early hour.

  The light streaming through the window is filtered and thin. It can’t be much before six in the morning.

  Goddamn she feels good.

  We’re laying side by side on the bed. I rock in deep, lifting her left thigh up over mine, positioning myself to enter her from behind. She’s slick and wet, her body already moving against mine. The warm, spicy scent of her hair fills my senses. I move
my cock against the delicate folds of her sex, and she moans, ever so softly. In the dim light, her eyelids flicker open for just a moment.

  “I need you,” I say. “I need to fuck you, Avery.” The words are guttural, coming from some dark, instinctual place inside me.

  “Oh…God,” She cries a little, still half asleep as I slip in between her hot, wet lips. I start rolling into her, languidly, like a dream. Her pussy is so tight and so hot, gripping me in her early morning dreams.

  “Oh… fuck...” I say. She’s still so tight, just like I imagined her all those years ago. Fresh, innocent, unspoiled. Like she was waiting for me, all these years. “I’m going to come deep inside that little pussy,” I say. “You want me to, don’t you? You want me to fill you up.”

  She moans, reflexively bringing her hands to her nipples, rolling them between her fingertips as she looks back over her shoulder at me.

  “Yeah,” she breathes sleepily. “I want to feel you come inside me.”

  She’s coming awake now. I pull her hips back and ride her just a bit harder.

  “Come for me,” I instruct her.

  She has so much experience doing what she’s told, her pussy starts to shudder as I roll in. Her fingers grip at the sheets as she begins to whine like a cat. Her mouth opens – and I think of how she worked me before, her tongue climbing the length of my shaft. I wish for a moment that I was two men so I could take her all at once. Every part of her.

  Instead, I fuck her gently, drawing back and then pouring in deep. She trembles, and her body quakes while I fuck her ever-so-softly. She cries out my name, babbling, her body moving with mine of its own accord. I could listen to that a thousand times and not be satisfied.

  I keep pumping until my balls seize up and my cock grows even harder. I hold myself inside of her, deep and pure My orgasm explodes and all I want is to hold her against me forever.

  Avery is right. I can’t control myself. I can’t change the fact that I want her, and want to take care of her. I want to wake up next to her like this every single day. I need to figure out how to make this work – for both of us.

  “Get out of my bed and make me a cup of coffee,” Avery says, her post-coital bliss gone, replaced by a brittle edge. “Earn your keep.”

  I’m also very well-schooled in doing just as I’m told; something else the Marines taught me.

  When I return to the bedroom with two cups of steaming hot French-pressed coffee, hers with three sugars and heavy cream, just like she likes it, I find Avery sitting up in bed, holding her phone, an expression of horror smeared across her face. She looks like she’s about to burst into tears.

  “What’s wrong, Avery? What is it?”

  She looks up at me, wide eyed. She hands me her phone.

  I look at the first image displayed on the screen. It’s a photograph of her, lying – eyes closed – sprawled on the street. The next image is a close-up crotch shot, in the same location. The next is a shot of Avery in a bar with her friend Elle, her face flushed, head tipped back, laughing. There are more recent ones. Several taken at the charity dinner two nights ago, of Avery working the crowd. A couple of the altercation with Schilling, with me in them, looming over that little prick, Avery tucked behind me. And two more; one on the campus at Berkeley taken yesterday, and one right outside this apartment as we were headed inside last evening.

  The last one was accompanied by the following text;

  “I see you. I own you. I’m your shadow. I’m the shadow of death. I’m coming for you Avery.”

  Oh fuck.

  How did I miss this? Someone’s been following us this whole time, and I missed it? Good lord I really do suck at this job. I’m paying attention to all the wrong things.

  Okay. I know what to do.

  I scroll to Avery’s contact list and find her father’s number, hit call, and wait while it rings.

  “Who are you calling?” Avery asks. Her face swimming with fear and confusion.

  I shake her off as the line picks up.

  “Hi Avery. You never call. It’s good...”

  “It’s not Avery,” I say, interrupting her father. “It’s Maddox Bryant. We have a situation that I need to deal with fast, and I need your help and cooperation.”

  “What’s wrong?” General Thomas asks, all the good humor gone from his tone.

  “The guy who assaulted Avery, he’s back – and threatening her. He just sent a series of photographs, demonstrating just how close he has gotten, and a text. I need to get Avery to a safe place while you get this material to the police. This guy isn’t going to stop until he’s either caught or he seriously hurts her – or worse.”

  “What do I need to do?” General Thomas asks, his tone grave.

  “I’m going to forward the photos and text to you from Avery’s phone, and then leave her phone in her apartment. The police may be able to use the phone to trace the texts back to the source. I’m taking her out of here and to a safe house. I have friends who can help. I’ll call you from my line when we’re tucked in.”

  “Just bring her to our house, son,” he booms. “Whatever is going on, we can work it out here.”

  “No.” I interrupt him. “This guy, whoever he is, he’s close enough to you to have been at the fundraiser the other night. He’s someone you know. I’ve gotta get Avery away from your circle of friends until we get him. I’m sending you the material now. I’ll call you later.”

  On the other end of the line, the crusty old general sighs. He isn’t my favorite person, but he values Avery’s safety far more than Evelyn does. “Fine, Maddox. But you know the contract. You helped me come up with it. And that means that when we call on you, you get Avery where she needs to be.”

  I end the call and quickly forward everything to his number, then I lay Avery’s phone down on the bed.

  “You need to pack,” I say. “Pack light. Just what you need for a few days. Anything we need we can get there.”

  “Where’s there?” She asks me.

  “Los Angeles.” I reply. “The Marine base at 29 palms.”

  I may not be the sharpest blade in the drawer, but I do have a couple things going for me. One is that I’m a former Marine with base privileges. The other is that I know some really useful people.

  I can’t count on the idea that we won’t be followed from here all the way to Southern California, but I know with certainty that no one without military credentials or prior approval is getting onto that base, and once on base I can help Avery disappear and shake this ‘shadow’ once and for all.

  I make one more call. This one to my old officer, Lieutenant Salvatore, one of the smartest and probably the toughest SOB I’ve ever met.

  “Bryant. To what do I owe the pleasure? Ready to quit the soft life and join back up?” He quips, answering on the first ring.

  “Boss, I’m in a jam and I need your help,” I say, skipping the pleasantries.

  I explain everything to him – leaving out the one crucial detail that I’m sleeping with my principal – and ask him for the three things I know he can provide. First, for permission for Avery to come on base, next, a vehicle, and finally, access to his place on Sea Coast Drive.

  “I’ll get her on the list at the gate house,” he says. “Make sure she’s got two forms of picture ID, and if you’re carrying, make sure you’ve got your permits in hand before you come on base property. Understood?”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “I’ll see you when you get here. Are you driving or flying?”

  “Driving, sir.”

  “Shit, that’s a long drive. Be safe. I’ll see you tonight.”

  Avery hasn’t moved. She’s still sitting there in bed, the sheet pulled up tight around her, looking concerned. Helpless. Tears fringing her blond eyelashes. And utterly irresistible.

  I try to stifle the urge I feel — it’s not exactly gentlemanly to go after damsels in distress. But fuck, she’s beautiful.

  “We need to get moving,” I say. “Dri
nk your coffee, get a shower, pack a bag, and we’re bolting.”

  “To Los Angeles?” She asks, her voice cracking. “Why, exactly?”

  “Because I say so.” I reply. “You’re not safe here. My job is to keep you safe, so I’m gonna do my job.”

  This extraction also has the added benefit of getting Avery away from her mother and all the negative energy between them. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise.

  “Look at it like a weekend getaway,” I say, trying to lighten the mood. “An impromptu road trip. And, we’re putting 500 miles between you and your mother. Find the upside.”

  Avery heaves in a deep breath, lifts her hand and smooths back her wild mane of red hair. She shakes her head and sighs. “Alright. It’s not like I have anything else to do.”

  Once on the road I have no clue whether we’re being followed. If someone’s tailing us, they’re good at keeping their distance. Once on the I-5, I press the speedometer past eighty, keeping my eyes peeled for the highway patrol and bad drivers.

  “Los Angeles is an armpit,” Avery says, her gaze still fixed out the window. “Ugliest town this side of El Paso.”

  She’s not far off.

  I agree with her, then add, “Yeah, but El Paso doesn’t have a beach house all to ourselves, with a couple of miles of pristine, private beach laid out beside it. It could be worse.”

  She turns to me. “Why are you doing this Maddox? It’s a lot of trouble to go to just to get me out of reach of this creep.”

  I smile. “I wanna see you in a bikini again. The creep just gave me a perfect excuse.”

  She rolls her eyes at me and laughs. “You make it so hard to stay mad at you.”

  Good.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Avery

  I know my mother is completely freaking out. Maddox knew what he was doing, calling my father instead of her and leaving my phone at my apartment. He turned his off before we left, so if Mother has tried to get up with us, she’s hitting stone walls. She doesn’t do powerless well. There will be hell to pay. I know it.